Process for producing a lighting louver

A process for forming a lighting louver including a plurality of interconnected louver members, comprising the steps of:

• providing a sheet of thermoformable plastic and having opposed sheet surfaces;
• heating the sheet to a pliable state;
• providing a forming mandrel having a series of parabolic louver forming mandrel partitions arranged with spaces between the mandrel partitions;
• positioning the heated sheet over the forming mandrel with one sheet surface facing the forming mandrel;
• applying a pressure against the one sheet surface, and applying a negative pressure against the remaining sheet surface and thereby forcing the heated sheet onto the forming mandrel to form the sheet over the mandrel partitions and forming a louver blank including formed parabolic louver segments that conform to the parabolic mandrel partitions and webbing segments that span the spaces between the parabolic mandrel partitions;
• and
• providing light transmissive areas between the formed parabolic louver segments and light reflective surfaces on the parabolic louver segments.

A process for forming a lighting louver including a plurality of interconnected louver members, comprising the steps of:

• providing a sheet of thermoformable material including opposed sheet surfaces, one of said sheet surfaces having a light reflective surface;
• heating the sheet to a pliable state;
• providing a forming mandrel having a series of parabolic mandrel partitions arranged with spaces between the mandrel partitions;
• positioning the heated sheet over the forming mandrel;
• forming the sheet over the parabolic mandrel partitions by pressing one of the sheet surfaces onto the mandrel partitions and by pulling a remaining one of the sheet surfaces into the mandrel partitions, thereby forming a louver blank including formed parabolic louver segments that conform to the parabolic mandrel partitions and webbing segments that conform to the spaces between the parabolic mandrel partitions;
• and
• producing light transmissive areas between the formed parabolic louver segments by removing the webbing segments.